(Announcer:)
I should like to introduce now the featured artist of this evening's…ordeal. I'm
sure that you will all agree without any hesitation that Tom Lehrer is the most
brilliant creative genius that America has produced in almost 200 years, so
perhaps a few words of biographical background might not be amiss. Endowed by
nature with perhaps the most glorious baritone voice to be heard on an American
stage since the memorable concert debut in 1835 of Millard Fillmore; endowed
also with twelve incredibly agile fingers; Mr. Lehrer has had a long and varied
career in the field of entertainment starting with nine years at Harvard
University…where it was that he first decided to devote his life to what has
since become a rather successful scientific project—namely, the attempt to
prolong adolescence beyond all previous limits.

Even before he came to Harvard, however,
he was well known in academic circles for his masterly translation into Latin of
The Wizard of Oz, which remains even today the standard Latin
version of that work!

A few years ago he was inducted…forcibly…into the United
States Army and spent most of his indenture in Washington as sort of Army
liaison to the Office of Naval Contemplation. About his service record he is
justifiably… modest, but it is known that in a short time he rose to the rank of
brigadier general. However, before he could acquire a tenure, he was discharged,
and owing to nepotism and intrigue, he emerged with only the rank of Specialist
3rd Class, which was roughly equivalent to the rank of Corporal without
Portfolio.

But to return to his career in show
business: for several years he toured vaudeville theaters with an act
consisting of impressions of people in the last throes of various diseases. I'm
sure that many of you here tonight still recall with pleasure his memorable
diphtheria imitation. He is generally acknowledged to be the dean of living
American composers, and is currently working on a musical comedy based on the
life of Adolf Hitler Without further ado—Tom Lehrer…

Well, what I like to do on formal
occasions like this is to take some of the various types of songs that we all
know and presumably love, and, as it were, to kick them when they're down. I
find that if you take the various popular song forms to their logical extremes,
you can arrive at almost anything from the ridiculous to the obscene, or—as they
say in New York—«sophisticated». I'd like to illustrate with several hundred
examples for you this evening, first of all, the southern type song about the
wonders of the American south. But it's always seemed to me that most of these
songs really don't go far enough. The following song, on the other hand, goes
too far. It's called I Wanna Go Back To Dixie.

I wanna go back to Dixie,
Take me back to dear ol' Dixie,
That's the only li'l ol' place for li'l ol' me.
Old times there are not forgotten,
Whuppin' slaves and sellin' cotton,
And
waitin' for the Robert E. Lee.
(It was never there on time.)

I'll go back to the Swanee,
Where pellagra makes you scrawny,
And the honeysuckle clutters up the vine.
Skip—PauseI really am a-fixin'
To go home and start a-mixin'
Down below that
Mason-Dixon line.

Pause:In live
performances, Lehrer occasionally varied the lyrics of some of his songs. It is
reported that this line was sometimes sung as:

Pause:After the
Civil War, many Southern states enacted a Poll Tax; as a way of preventing poor
blacks and «white trash» (seemingly self-pitying/due to
(too much?)
complaining—poor people thus nicknamed by the ruling republicans—«communists») from voting. This lasted until the passage of the
24th Amendment in 1964, due to the too obvious conflict with the Human
Rights bill of the United Nations.

Pause: In some live
performances, the beginning of this verse was sung as:

I wanna start relaxin'
Down in Birmingham or Jackson
When we're havin' fun, while no one interferes.

This was a reference to
separate events that occurred in 1962 and 1963.
In 1962,
James Meredith was the first black person allowed to enroll at the
University of Mississippi
in Jackson, but the presence of the National Guard was required to ensure that
he was actually able to attend.
In 1963, police in Birmingham, Alabama used
fire hoses and dogs to break up a demonstration being carried out by
Martin
Luther King, Jr. and several other ministers.

I wanna talk with Southern gentlemen
And put that white sheet on again,Skip—Pause

Lehrer Comments:
«I Wanna Go Back to Dixie was a crowd pleaser in the 1950s, because one
associated that kind of bigotry with the South. Now the North is just as bad; so
it doesn't really make much sense any more.»—1996 Interview

I wanna go back to Dixie,
I wanna be a Dixie pixie
And eat corn pone till it's comin' outta my ears.
I wanna talk with Southern gentlemen
And put that white sheet on again,
I ain't seen one good lynchin' in years.

The land of the boll weevil,
Where the laws are medieval,
Is callin' me to come and nevermore roam.
I wanna go back to the Southland,
That «y'all» and «shet-ma-mouth» land,
Be it ever so decadent,
There's no place like home.

Now if I may indulge in a bit of
personal history, a few years ago I worked for a while at the Los Alamos
scientific laboratory in New Mexico. I had a job there as a spy. No, I guess you
know that the staff out there at that time was composed almost exclusively of
spies…of one persuasion or another. And, while I was out there, I came to
realize how much the Wild West had changed since the good old days of Wyatt Earp
and Home
on the Range, and here then is a modern cowboy ballad commemorating that
delightful metamorphosis, called «The Wild West Is Where I Wanna Be».

Along the trail you'll find me lopin'
Where the spaces are wide open,
In the land of the old A.E.C. Yee-hoo!

Atomic
Energy Commission

Where the scenery's attractive,
And the air is radioactive,
Oh, the Wild West is where I wanna be.

'Mid the sagebrush and the cactus
I'll watch the fellows practice
Droppin' bombs through the clean desert breeze. A-ha!
I'll have on my sombrero,
And of course I'll wear a pair o'
Levis over my lead B.V.D.'s.

B.V.D.'s: An old expression for men's
underwear; taken from the acronym of the company «Bradley, Voorhees & Day»,
today known as
Fruit of the Loom.

I will leave the city's rush,
Leave the fancy and the plush,
Leave the snow and leave the slush
And the crowds.
I will seek the desert's hush,
Where the scenery is lush,
How I long to see the mush-room clouds.

'Mid the yuccas and the thistles
I'll watch the guided missiles,
While the old F.B.I. watches me. Yee-hoo!
Yes, I'll soon make my appearance
(Soon as I can get my clearance),
'Cause the Wild West is where I wanna be.

You are no doubt familiar with songs
about the old
lamplighter, and the old umbrella man, and the old
garbage collector, and all these lovable old characters who go around spreading
sweetness and light to their respective communities. But, it's always seemed to
me that there is one member of this happy band who does an equally splendid job,
but who has never been properly recognized in song or story, and this is an
attempt to remedy, at least in part, that deplorable situation.

When the shades of night are falling,
Comes a fellow everyone knows.
It's the old dope peddler,
Spreading joy wherever he goes.

Every evening you will find him,
Around our neighborhood.
It's the old dope peddler
Doing well by doing good.

He gives the kids free samples,
Because he knows full well
That today's young innocent faces
Will be tomorrow's clientele.

Here's a cure for all your troubles,
Here's an end to all distress.
It's the old dope peddler
With his powdered happiness.

I know it's very bad form to quote one's
own reviews, but I would like to mention something that the New York Times
said about me a year ago which I've always treasured—they said: «Mr. Lehrer's
muse is not fettered by such inhibiting factors as—taste».

Lehrer Comments:
«[The Old Dope Peddler] was just intended as a takeoff on a certain genre of
sentimental songs, like The Old Lamplighter and The Umbrella Man,
which no one remembers any more. The idea was, it was only going to be funny if
I took the most repulsive, antisocial character to write the song about. I
thought about doing The Abortionist, but at that time you couldn't even
say that. The dope peddler was the second choice, so there it was.»—1996 Interview.

For comparison purposes, here
are the lyrics to the two songs mentioned as inspiration for The Old Dope
Peddler:

He made the night a little brighter
Wherever he would go
The old lamplighter
Of long, long ago
His snowy hair was so much whiter
Beneath the candle glow
The old lamplighter
Of long, long ago
You'd hear the patter of his feet
As he came toddling down the street
His smile would cheer a lonely heart you see.
If there were sweethearts in the park
He'd pass a lamp and leave it dark
Remembering the days that used to be
For he recalled when things were new
He loved someone who loved him too
Who walks with him alone in memories
He made the night a little brighter
Wherever he would go
The old lamplighter
Of long, long ago
His snowy hair was so much whiter
Beneath the candle glow
The old lamplighter
Of long, long ago
Now if you look up in the sky
You'll understand the reason why
The little stars at night are all aglow
He turns them on when night is near
He turns them off when dawn is here
The little man we left so long ago
He made the night a little brighter
Wherever he would go
The old lamplighter of long, long ago

Toodle—luma luma
Toodle—luma luma
Toodle—oh lay
Any umbrellas, any umbrellas
To mend today?
Bring your parasol, it may be small.
It may be big
He will fix them all
on what you call a thing-a-ma-jig
Pitter patter patter! Pitter patter patter!
It looks like rain.
Let it pitter patter. Let it pitter patter.
Who cares for rain?
He'll mend your umbrellas, then go on his way
Singing toodle luma luma. Toodle luma luma.
Any umbrellas to mend today.
When there's a lull
And things are dull
He'll sharpen knives for all the wives
In the neighborhood
And he's very good.
He'll darn a sock
Or fix a clock
An apple cart
A broken heart—-
He'll mend anything but he'd much rather sing—
Toodle—luma luma
Toodle—luma luma
Toodle-oh-lay
Any umbrellas—any umbrellas
To mend today?
He'll mend your umbrella
Then go on his way singing
Toodle luma luma
Toodle luma luma
Any umbrellas to mend today.

Now we come to that peculiar bit of
Americana known as the football
fight song. I was reminded not too long ago, upon returning from my lesson
with the Scrabble pro at the Harvard club in Boston, of the days of my
undergraduacy long ago when there used to be these very long Saturday afternoons
in the fall with nothing to do—the library was closed—just waiting around for
the cocktail parties to begin. And on occasions like that, some of us used to
wander over to the…I believe it was called the stadium, to see if anything might
be going on over there. And one did come to realize that the football fight
songs that one hears in comparable stadia have a tendency to be somewhat
uncouth, and even violent, and that it would be refreshing, to say the least, to
find one that was a bit more genteel. And here it is, dedicated to my own alma
mater, and called «Fight Fiercely, Harvard».

Fight fiercely, Harvard, fight, fight,
fight!
Demonstrate to them our skill.
Albeit they possess the might,
Nonetheless we have the will.

How we will celebrate our victory,
We shall invite the whole team up for tea. (How jolly!)
Hurl that spheroid down the field,
And fight, fight, fight!

Fight fiercely, Harvard, fight, fight, fight!
Impress them with our prowess, do!
Oh, fellas, do not let the crimson down,
Be of stout heart and true.

For many years now, Mr.
Danny Kaye, who
has been my particular idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine about the
great Russian director
Stanislavski and the secret of success in the acting profession. And I
thought it would be interesting to stea… to adapt this idea to the field
of mathematics. I always like to make explicit the fact that before I went off
not too long ago to fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession.
I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living.
I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be making,
oh, 3000 dollars a year, just teaching.

Be that as it may, some of you may have
had occasion to run into mathematicians and to wonder therefore how they got
that way, and here, in partial explanation perhaps, is the story of the great
Russian mathematician
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky.

Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky; 1793-1856

Who made me the genius I am today,The mathematician that others all quote?Who's the professor that made me that way,The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat?

One man deserves the credit,
One man deserves the blame,
and Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name. Oy!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache…

I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize!

Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize…
Only be sure always to call it please, «research».

And ever since I meet this man my life is not the same,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name. Oy!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache…

I am never forget the day I am given first original paper to write. Itwas on Analytic and Algebraic Topology of Locally Euclidean Metrizationof Infinitely Differentiable Riemannian Manifold.Bozhe moi!This I know from nothing.
But I think of great Lobachevsky and I get idea—haha!

In the studio recording these two lines are slightly
different:

This I know from
nothing. What I'm going to do?
I think of great Lobachevsky and I get idea—haha!

I have a friend in Minsk,
Who has a friend in Pinsk,
Whose friend in Omsk
Has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk.
His friend in Alexandrovsk
Has friend in Petropavlovsk,
Whose friend somehow
Is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk.

And when his work is done—
Haha!—begins the fun.
From Dnepropetrovsk
To Petropavlovsk,
By way of Iliysk,
And Novorossiysk,
To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk
To Tomsk to Omsk
To Pinsk to Minsk
To me the news will run,
Yes, to me the news will run!

And then I write
By morning, night,
And afternoon,
And pretty soon
My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed,
When he finds out I published first!

And who made me a big success
And brought me wealth and fame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name. Oy!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache…

I am never forget the day my first book is published.Every chapter I stole from somewhere else.Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.This book, this book was sensational!Pravda—ah, Pravda—Pravda said:«Jeel beel kara ogoday blyum blocha jeli,» («It stinks»).

But Izvestia! Izvestia said:«Jai, do gudoo sun sai pere shcum,» («It stinks»).Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva bought the movie rights for six million rubles,Changing title to 'The Eternal Triangle',With Brigitte
Bardot playing part of hypotenuse!

In the studio recording the part of the hypotenuse was
played by Ingrid
Bergman

And who deserves the credit?
And who deserves the blame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Oy!

Now I'd like to turn to the folk song,
which has become in recent years the particularly fashionable form of idiocy
among the self-styled intellectual. We find that people who deplore the level of
current popular songs—although I admit they do seem to be recording almost
anything these days. have you heard
SessueHayakawa's record of Remember Pearl
Harbor? These same people who deplore the level of current popular songs and
yet will sit around enthralled singing
«Jimmy crack corn and I don't care» or
«Green Grow The Rushes, Oh!»—whatever that means. At any rate, for
this elite I have here an ancient Irish ballad, which was written a few years
ago, and which is replete with all the accoutrements of this art form. In
particular, it has a sort of idiotic refrain, in this case «rickety-tickety-tin»
you'll notice cropping up from time to time, running through, I might add,
interminable verses.—The large number of verses being a feature expressly
designed to please the true devotees of the folk song who seem to find singing
fifty verses of
«On Top
Of Old Smokey» is twice as enjoyable as singing twenty-five.

This type of song also has what is known
technically in music as a
modal tune, which means—for the benefit of any layman who may have wandered
in this evening—that I play a wrong note every now and then, I think I might
add… (starts to play, then stops)

This song though does differ strikingly
from the genuine folk ballad in that in this song the words which are supposed
to rhyme—actually do. (starts to play, then stops)
I, ah, I really should say that—I do not direct these remarks against the vast
army of folk song lovers, but merely against that peculiar hard core who seem to
equate authenticity with artistic merit and illiteracy with charm.
(starts to play, then stops)

Oh—one more thing. One of the more
important aspects of public folk singing is audience participation, and this
happens to be a good song for group singing. So if any of you feel like joining
in with me on this song, I'd appreciate it if you would leave—right now.
(Starts to play, and continues…)

About a maid I'll sing a song,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
About a maid I'll sing a song,
Who didn't have her family long.
Not only did she do them wrong,
She did everyone of them in, them in,
She did everyone of them in.
One morning in a fit of pique,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
One morning in a fit of pique,
She drowned her father in the creek.
The water tasted bad for a week,
And we had to make do with gin, with gin,
We had to make do with gin.
Her mother she could never stand,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
Her mother she could never stand,
And so a cyanide soup she planned.
The mother died with a spoon in her hand,
And her face in a hideous grin, a grin,
Her face in a hideous grin.
She set her sister's hair on fire,
a-Rickety-tickety-tin,
She set her sister's hair on fire,
And as the smoke and flame rose higher,
Danced around the funeral pyre,
Playin' a violin,—olin,
Playin' a violin.
She weighted her brother down with stones,
a-Rickety-tickety-tin,
She weighted her brother down with stones,
And sent him off to Davy Jones.
All they ever found were some bones,
And occasional pieces of skin, of skin,
Occasional pieces of skin.
One day when she had nothing to do,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
One day when she had nothing to do,
She cut her baby brother in two,
And served him up as an Irish stew,
And invited the neighbors in,—bors in,
Invited the neighbors in.
And when at last the police came by,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
And when at last the police came by,
Her little pranks she did not deny.
To do so she would have had to lie,
And lying, she knew, was a sin, a sin,
Lying, she knew, was a sin.
My tragic tale I won't prolong,
Rickety-tickety-tin,
My tragic tale I won't prolong,
And if you do not enjoy my song,
You've yourselves to blame if it's too long,
You should never have let me begin, begin,
You should never have let me begin.

Almost every day during the hunting
season you see at least one item in the newspapers about somebody who has shot
somebody else, under the impression that he was a deer with a red hat, perhaps.
Maybe a large flesh-colored squirrel. At any rate, it seems to me that this
marks an encouraging new trend in the field of blood sports, and deserves a new
type of hunting song which I present herewith.

I always will remember,
'T was a year ago November,
I went out to hunt some deer
On a morning bright and clear.
I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow:
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.
I was in no mood to trifle,
I took down my trusty rifle
And went out to stalk my prey.
What a haul I made that day!
I tied them to my fender, and I drove them home somehow:
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.
The law was very firm, it
Took away my permit,
The worst punishment I ever endured.
It turned out there was a reason,
Cows were out of season,
And one of the hunters wasn't insured.
People ask me how I do it,
And I say «There's nothin' to it,
You just stand there lookin' cute,
And when something moves, you shoot!»
And there's ten stuffed heads in my trophy room right now:
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a pure-bred Guernsey cow.

In the
orchestral version of this song, the last two stanzas are repeated.

Next we have the
dear-hearts-and-gentle-people's school of songwriting, in which the singer tells
you that, no matter how much sin and vice and crime go on where he comes from,
it's still the best place in the world because it's home, you know? Sort of gets
you. This example is called My Home Town.

I really have a yen
To go back once again,
Back to the place where no one wears a frown,
To see once more those super-special just plain folks
In my home town.

No fellow could ignore
The little girl next door,
She sure looked sweet in her first evening gown.
Now there's a charge for what she used to give for free
In my home town.

I remember Dan, the druggist on the corner, he
Was never mean or ornery,
He was swell.
He killed his mother-in-law and ground her up real well,
And sprinkled just a bit
Over each banana split.

The guy that taught us math,
Who never took a bath,
Acquired a certain measure of renown,
And after school he sold the most amazing pictures
In my home town.

That fellow was no fool
Who taught our Sunday School,
And neither was our kindly Parson Brown—
(We're recording tonight, so I'll have to leave this line out.)Skip—Pause
In my home town.

Pause: In the studio recording this
line is: «I guess I better leave this line out just to be on the safe side».

In some live performances, this line
is given as: «Shall I? No, I'd better not».

The question that comes up over and over again is what is the line that is being
omitted here? Answer: There isn't one. Leaving it to the imagination is funnier
than any line could be. But for those who doubt that, feel free to try to come
up with one and send it in. I've had little luck myself. One possible line I've
come up with is

«He knew to pull the blinds at all the 'parish meetings' in my Home
Town»,

which at least has the virtue of having the proper number of
syllables, but is hardly worse (or even as bad) as most of the lines that
didn't get omitted. Anybody think they can do better? (I mean worse!).

I remember Sam, he was the village idiot,
And though it seems a pity, it
Was so.
He loved to burn down houses just to watch the glow,
And nothing could be done,
Because he was the mayor's son.
The guy that took a knife
And monogrammed his wife,
Then dropped her in the pond and watched her drown.
Oh, yes indeed, the people there are just plain folks
In my home town.

The most popular type of popular song is
of course the love song, and I'd like to illustrate several subspecies of this
form during the evening. First of all, the type of love song where the fellow
tells the girl that although the years ahead will almost certainly destroy every
vestige of her already dubious charms, that nonetheless his love for her will
shine on forever through the years, you know. Another example of stark realism
in the popular song.

This particular example is called
When You Are Old And Grey, and I'd like to dedicate it to anyone in the
audience who is still in love with each other.

Since I still appreciate you,
Let's find love while we may.
Because I know I'll hate you
When you are old and grey.
So say you love me here and now,
I'll make the most of that.
Say you love and trust me,
For I know you'll disgust me
When you're old and getting fat.
An awful debility,
A lessened utility,
A loss of mobility
Is a strong possibility.
In all probability
I'll lose my virility
And you your fertility
And desirability.
And this liability
Of total sterility
Will lead to hostility
And a sense of futility.
So let's act with agility
While we still have facility,
For we'll soon reach senility
And lose the ability.
Your teeth will start to go, dear,
Your waist will start to spread.
In twenty years or so, dear,
I'll wish that you were dead.
I'll never love you then at all
The way I do today.
So please remember,
When I leave in December,
I told you so in May.

Now to continue with the love song, here
we have the Viennese waltz type of the Franz Lehar/Johann Strauss school,
conjuring up images of gaily waltzing couples, and probably stale champagne
drunk from sweaty slippers. This example is called The Wiener Schnitzel Waltz.

Do you remember the night I held you so tight,
As we danced to the Wiener Schnitzel Waltz?
The music was gay, and the setting was Viennese,
Your hair wore some roses (or perhaps they were peonies?),
I was blind to your obvious faults,
As we danced 'cross the scene
To the strains of the Wiener Schnitzel Waltz.
Oh, I drank some champagne from your shoe, la-la-la.
I was drunk by the time I got through, la-la-la.
For I didn't know as I raised that cup,
It had taken two bottles to fill the thing up.
It was I who stepped on your dress, la-la-la.
The skirts all came off, I confess, la-la-la.
Revealing for all of the others to see
Just what it was that endeared you to me…
I remember the night I held you so tight,
As we danced to the Wiener Schnitzel Waltz.
Your lips were like wine (if you'll pardon the simile),
The music was lovely and quite Rudolf Frimly. Skip—Pause

Pause:Rudolf
Frimly, 1879-1972. A composer born in Prague, and who moved to the US in 1906.
He wrote 33 light operas, the best known of which are «The Firefly» (1912),
«Rose Marie» (1924), and «The Vagabond King» (1925). I say «best
known», though in reality I hadn't heard of even these ones until I looked the
guy up.

I drank wine, you drank chocolate malts,
And we both turned quite green
To the strains of the Wiener Schnitzel Waltz.

One more love song. I generally like to
include at least one or two love songs in the evening's program, partly perhaps
to convince people that even at the Harvard University Graduate School, that
hotbed of celibacy that I used to call home, we did have our moments. This one
is a tender ballad entitled simply I Hold Your Hand In Mine.

I hold your hand in mine, dear,
I press it to my lips.
I take a healthy bite
From your dainty fingertips.
My joy would be complete, dear,
If you were only here,
But still I keep your hand
As a precious souvenir.
The night you died I cut it off,
I really don't know why.
For now each time I kiss it
I get bloodstains on my tie.
I'm sorry now I killed you,
For our love was something fine,
And till they come to get me
I shall hold your hand in mine.

You know, of all the songs I have ever
sung, that is the one I've had the most requests not to.

I have time for one more here. This one
is a little song dedicated to the Boy Scouts of America,
[applause] we seem to have a convention here tonight! The Boy Scouts of
America, those noble little… bastions of democracy, and the American Legion of
tomorrow. Their motto is… I would like to state at this time that I am not now
and have never been…

Pause: A reference to the question
asked of witnesses by the House Un-American Activities Committee during the
McCarthy
era: «Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?»

…a member of the Boy Scouts of America. Their
motto is, as you know, Be Prepared! and that is the name of this song.

Be prepared! That's the Boy Scouts' marching song,
Be prepared! As through life you march along.
Be prepared to hold your liquor pretty well.
Don't write naughty words on walls if you can't spell.
Be prepared! To hide that pack of cigarettes.
Don't make book if you cannot cover bets.
Keep those reefers hidden where you're sure that they will not be found,
And be careful not to smoke them when the scoutmaster's around,
For he only will insist that they be shared, be prepared! Skip—Pause

Pause: In some live performances,
these last three lines were given as:

«Keep that pot hidden where you're sure that it will not be found,
and be careful not to turn on when the scoutmaster's around,
For he only will insist that it be shared, be prepared!»

Be prepared! That's the Boy Scouts' solemn creed,
Be prepared! And be clean in word and deed.
Don't solicit for your sister, that's not nice,
Unless you get a good percentage of her price.
Be prepared! And be careful not to do
Your good deeds when there's no one watching you.
If you're looking for adventure of a new and different kind,
And you come across a Girl Scout who is similarly inclined,
Don't be nervous, don't be flustered, don't be scared. Be prepared!

I'd like to take you now on wings of
song as it were, and try and help you forget, perhaps, for a while, your drab
wretched lives. Here is a song all about springtime in general, and in
particular about one of the many delightful pastimes that the coming of spring
affords us all.

Spring is here, a-suh-puh-ring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.
I do, don't you? 'Course you do!
But there's one thing that makes spring complete for me,
And makes every Sunday a treat for me.
All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
Every Sunday you'll see
My sweetheart and me,
As we poison the pigeons in the park.
When they see us coming, the birdies all try an' hide,
But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide.
The sun's shining bright,
Everything seems all right,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
We've gained notoriety,
And caused much anxiety
In the Audubon Society
With our games.
They call it impiety
And lack of propriety,
And quite a variety
Of unpleasant names.
But it's not against any religion
To want to dispose of a pigeon.
So if Sunday you're free,
Why don't you come with me,
And we'll poison the pigeons in the park.
And maybe we'll do
In a squirrel or two,

Pause: In 1998,
Lehrer performed this song as part of a one-off show devoted to
Sir Cameron
Mackintosh, and substituted «sparrow» for «squirrel».

While we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
We'll murder them all amid laughter and merriment,
Except for the few we take home to experiment.
My pulse will be quickenin'
With each drop of strych'nine
We feed to a pigeon.
(It just takes a smidgin!)
To poison a pigeon in the park.

For my first encore, I'd like to turn to
a type of song…(laughter) to a type of song
that people like myself find ourselves subjected to with increasing frequency as
time goes on, and that is the College Alma Mater. You find yourself at a reunion
of old grads and old undergrads… and somebody will start croaking out one of
these things and everyone will gradually join in, each in his own key of course,
until the place is just soggy with nostalgia.

Well, a typical such song might be
called «Bright College Days», Skip—Pause and might go like this:

Bright college years, with pleasure rife,
The shortest, gladdest years of life;
How swiftly are ye gliding by!
Oh, why doth time so quickly fly?
The seasons come, the seasons go,
The earth is green or white with snow,
But time and change shall naught avail
To break the friendships formed at Yale.

In after years should trouble rise
To cloud the blue of sunny skies,
How bright will seem thru mem'ry's haze,
Those happy, golden, bygone days!
Oh, let us strive that ever we
May let these words our watch cry be,
Where're upon life's sea we sail
«For God, for country, and for Yale!»

Bright college days, oh, carefree days that fly,
To thee we sing with our glasses raised on high.
[holds up his eyeglasses]
Let's drink a toast as each of us recalls
Ivy-covered professors in ivy-covered halls.
Turn on the spigot,
Pour the beer and swig it,
And gaudeamus igit-itur. Skip—Pause

|: May our Alma Mater thrive,
A font of education; :|
Friends and colleagues, where're they are, Whether near or from afar,
|: Heed her invitation. :|

Here's to parties we tossed,
To the games that we lost
(We shall claim that we won them someday).
To the girls, young and sweet,
To the spacious back seat
Of our roommate's beat up Chevrolet.
To the beer and benzedrine,
To the way that the dean
Tried so hard to be pals with us all.
To excuses we fibbed,
To the papers we cribbed
From the genius who lived down the hall.
To the tables down at Mory'sSkip—Pause
(Wherever that may be?),
Let us drink a toast to all we love the best.
We will sleep through all the lectures,
And cheat on the exams,
And we'll pass, and be forgotten with the rest.

Pause: Mory's is
a dining club located at 306 York Street, in New Haven, Connecticut, that was
originally open only to Yale faculty and students. The phrase «the tables down
at Mory's», as well as the «glasses raised on high», and «temple bar we love so
well», is a reference to the
Whiffenpoof Song, that goes (Wow, FOUR songs in one! Aren't you
lucky?):

THE WHIFFENPOOF SONG

To the tables down at Mory's
To the place where Louie dwells
To the dear old Temple bar we love so well
Sing the Whiffenpoofs assembled with their glasses raised on high
And the magic of their singing casts its spell
Yes, the magic of their singing of the songs we love so well
«Shall I Wasting» and «Mavourneen» and the rest
We will serenade our Louie while life and voice shall last
Then we'll pass and be forgotten with the rest
We're poor little lambs who have lost our way
Baa, baa, baa
We're little black sheep who have gone astray
Baa, baa, baa
Gentleman songsters off on a spree
Doomed from here to eternity
Lord have mercy on such as we
Baa, baa, baa

To the tables down at Mory's
(Wherever that may be?),
Let us drink a toast to all we love the best.
We will sleep through all the lectures,
And cheat on the exams,
And we'll pass, and be forgotten with the rest.
Oh, soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife.
Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life. (Oooh!)
(laughter) … Ready? …
But as we go our sordid separate ways,
We shall ne'er forget thee, thou golden college days.
Hearts full of youth,
Hearts full of truth,
Six parts gin to one part vermouth.

One very familiar type of song is the
Christmas carol, although it is perhaps a bit out of season at this time.
However, I am informed by my disk jockey friends, of whom I have none, that in
order to get a song popular by Christmas time you have to start plugging it well
in advance, so here it goes. It's always seemed to me, after all, that
Christmas, with its spirit of giving, offers us all a wonderful opportunity each
year to reflect on what we all most sincerely and deeply believe in—I refer, of
course, to money. And yet, none of the Christmas carols that you hear on the
radio, or in the street, even attempts to capture the true spirit of Christmas
as we celebrate it in the United States, that is to say the commercial spirit.
So I should like to offer the following Christmas carol for next year as being
perhaps a bit more appropriate.

Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly.
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don't say when.
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens.
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.
On Christmas Day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore.
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.
Relations, sparing no expense, 'll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
(«Just the thing I need, how nice!»)
It doesn't matter how sincere it is,
Nor how heart felt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What's important is the price.
Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest ye merry merchants,
May ye make the Yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high,
Tell us to go out and buy!
So, let the raucous sleighbells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky.
Don't stand underneath when they fly by.

Actually, I did rather well myself this
past Christmas. The nicest present I received was a gift certificate good at any
hospital for a lobotomy… rather thoughtful.

Now, if I may digress momentarily from
the mainstream of this evening's symposium, I'd like to sing a song which is
completely pointless, but is something which I picked up during my career as a
scientist. This may prove useful to some of you some day, perhaps, in a somewhat
bizarre set of circumstances. It's simply the names of the chemical elements set
to a possibly recognizable tune. Skip—Pause

The Elements was an attempt to top the song Tschaikowsky, by Ira
Gershwin and Kurt Weill, which Danny Kaye sang in the show Lady in the Dark,
rattling off the names of 50 Russian composers at lightning speed.

There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold and protactinium and indium and gallium, (gasp)
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.

—Isn't that interesting?
I knew you would.
I hope you're all taking notes; because there's going to be a short quiz next
period…

There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.
And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium, (gasp)
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.

These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others but they haven't been discovered. Skip—Pause

Pause:Although there has been much confusion and
academic infighting over the Periodic Table in recent years, here are the
elements that have been discovered since the writing of this song:

103.

Lawrenciuim (1961)

(Lr)

104.

Rutherfordium (1964)

(Rf)

105.

Dubnium (1967)

(Db)

106.

Seaborgium (1974)

(Sg)

107.

Bohrioum (1976)

(Bh)

108.

Hassium (1984)

(Hs)

109.

Meitnerium (1982)

(Mt)

110.

Darmstadtium (1994)

(Ds)

111.

Still Unnamed

(--)

112.

Still Unnamed

(--)

114.

Still Unnamed

(--)

116.

Still Unnamed

(--)

118.

Still Unnamed

(--)

Dates given are the year that the element
was first created, though in many cases, the final name was not decided until
years later, and alternate or temporary names were affixed to some of them
before the final name was settled. For instance, it was not until August 2003
that Element 110 was named after the town in Germany where it had been
discovered. It had been called Ununnillium as a temporary name. Of the various
permanent names proposed for it since its discovery, the most colorful was
probably «Policium», suggested for the reason that 110 was the telephone number
of the German police.

It seems that most of the songs that you
hear these days on the radio played by the disk jockeys, apart from rock and
roll and other children's records, tend to be motion picture title songs.
Apparently producers feel that we will not attend their movies unless we have
the titles well drilled into our heads in advance. Of course, we don't go
anyway, but at least this way they make back on the song some of what they've
lost on the picture. But, with the rise of the motion picture title song we have
such hits of the past few years as
The Ten
Commandments Mambo,
Brothers
Karamazov Cha-Cha,
Incredible
Shrinking Man I Love You… I'm sure you're all familiar with these.

But, a few years ago, a motion picture
version appeared of Sophocles' immortal tragedy
Œdipus
Rex. This picture played only in the so-called art theaters, and it was
not a financial success. And I maintain that the reason it was not a financial
success…(laughter) you're way ahead of me…
was that it did not have a title tune which the people could hum, and which
would make them actually eager to attend this particular flick. So, I've
attempted to supply this, and here then is the prospective title song from
Œdipus Rex.

From the Bible to the popular song,
There's one theme that we find right along;
Of all ideals they hail as good,
The most sublime is motherhood.
There was a man though, who it seems,
Once carried this ideal to extremes.
He loved his mother and she loved him,
And yet his story is rather grim.
There once lived a man named Œdipus Rex,
You may have heard about his odd complex.
His name appears in Freud's index
'Cause he loved his mother.
His rivals used to say quite a bit
That as a monarch he was most unfit.
But still in all they had to admit
That he loved his mother.
Yes, he loved his mother like no other,
His daughter was his sister and his son was his brother.
One thing on which you can depend is,
He sure knew who a boy's best friend is.
When he found what he had done,
He tore his eyes out, one by one.
A tragic end to a loyal son
Who loved his mother.
So be sweet and kind to mother,
Now and then have a chat.
Buy her candy or some flowers,
Or a brand new hat.
But maybe you had better let it go at that.
Or you may find yourself with a quite complex complex
And you may end up like Œdipus.
I'd rather marry a duck-billed platypus
Than end up like old Œdipus Rex.

I'm sure you're all aware that this week
is National Gall Bladder Week, and so as sort of an educational feature at this
point I thought I would acquaint you with some of the results of my recent
researches into the career of the late Doctor Samuel Gall, inventor of the gall
bladder, which certainly ranks as one of the more important technological
advances since the invention of the joy buzzer and the dribble glass.

Dr. Gall's faith in his invention was so
dramatically vindicated last year, as you no doubt recall, when, for the first
time in history in a nationwide poll, the gall bladder was voted among the top
ten organs. His educational career began, interestingly enough, in agricultural
school, where he majored in animal husbandry, until they… caught him at it one
day… whereupon he switched to the field of medicine, in which field he also won
renown as the inventor of gargling, which prior to that time had been practiced
only furtively by a remote tribe in the Andes who passed the secret down from
father to son as part of their oral tradition.

He soon became a specialist,
specializing in diseases of the rich. He was therefore able to retire at an
early age… to the land we all dream about: sunny Mexico, of course, the last
part of which is completely irrelevant, as was the whole thing, I guess, except
it's a rather sneaky way of getting into this next type of popular song, which
is one of those things about that magic and romantic land south of the border.

When it's fiesta time in Guadalajara,
Then I long to be back once again
In Old Mexico.
Where we lived for today, never giving a thought to tomara.
To the strumming of guitars,
In a hundred grubby bars
I would whisper «Teo amo.»

Teo amo:
Spanish for «I Love You».

The mariachis would serenade,
And they would not shut up till they were paid.
We ate, we drank, and we were merry,
And we got typhoid and dysentery.

Mexico's
water supply is notoriously tainted.

But best of all, we went to the Plaza de Toros.
Now whenever I start feeling morose,
I revive by recalling that scene.
And names like Belmonte, Dominguin, and Manolete,

Three Spanish bullfighters.
Juan
Belmonte invented modern bull fighting.
Manolete died in
the arena in 1947. Dominguin pronounced himself Numero Uno after the death of
Manolete.

If I live to a hundred and eight-tay,
I shall never forget what they mean.

For there is surely nothing more
beautiful in this world than the sight of a lone man facing single-handedly a
half a ton of angry pot roast!

Out came the matador,
Who must have been potted or
Slightly insane, but who looked rather bored.
Then the picadors of course,
Each one on his horse,
I shouted «Olé!» every time one was gored.

I cheered at the banderilleros' display,
As they stuck the bull in their own clever way,
For I hadn't had so much fun since the day
My brother's dog Rover
Got run over.

Rover was killed by a Pontiac. And it
was done with such grace and artistry that the witnesses awarded the driver both
ears and the tail—

If a
bullfighter puts on an especially good show, the spectators may award him parts
of the bull, such as, yes, the ears or the tail.

…but I digress.

The moment had come,
I swallowed my gum,
We knew there'd be blood on the sand pretty soon.
The crowd held its breath,
Hoping that death
Would brighten an otherwise dull afternoon.

At last, the matador did what we wanted him to,
He raised his sword and his aim was true.
In that moment of truth, I suddenly knew
That someone had stolen my wallet.

Now it's fiesta time in Akron, Ohio,
But it's back to old Guadalajara I'm longing to go.
Far away from the strikes of the A.F. of L. and C.I.O.

The two largest American labour unions, the
American Federation of Labor, and the Congress of Industrial
Organizations, who merged in 1955 to form the
AFL/CIO.

How I wish I could get back
To the land of the wetback,

Racial
epithet for Mexicans, deriving from the fact that many illegal immigrants enter
the USA by swimming across the Rio Grande River that lies between Mexico and
Texas.

I should like to consider the folk song,
and expound briefly on a theory I have held for some time, to the effect that
the reason most folk songs are so atrocious is that they were written by the
people. If professional songwriters had written them instead, things might have
turned out considerably differently. For example, consider the old favorite,
with which, I'm sure, you're all familiar, Clementine, you know:

In a cavern, in a canyon,
dadada dadadada…

…a song with no recognizable merit
whatsoever—and imagine what might have happened if, for example, Cole Porter had
tried writing this song. The first verse might have come out like this:

In a cavern, in a canyon,
Excava-ha-ha-hating for a mine,
Far away from the boom-boom-boom of the city
She was so pretty—what a pity, Clementine.

Oh Clementine, can't you tell from the howls of me
This love of mine calls to you from the bowels of me.
Are you discerning the returning
Of this churning, burning, yearning for you…oo oo…ah ah…

… well, supposing at this point that
Mozart (or one of that crowd) had tried writing a verse, the next one might have
come out as a baritone aria from an Italian opera, somewhat along these lines:

Supposing at this rather dramatic
juncture in the narrative, one of our modern cool school of composers had
tried writing a verse, the next one might have come out like this:

A one, a two, a three…
Drove those ducklings to the water… yeah brach! doddley doo doo uh ah!
Ev'ry morning like 9am…ooh pah! de do de do do do, biddley da!
Got hung up on a splinter, got a-hung up on a splinter…
cloo ge mop! Huh huh! [do de do de do do do]
Fell into the foamy brine, dig that crazy Clementine, man!

To end on a happy note, one can always
count on Gilbert and Sullivan for a rousing finale, full of words and music
and signifying—nothing.

A reference to a line from
Macbeth:

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (5.5.28)

That I missed her depressed her young sister named Esther,
This mister to pester she tried.
Now her pestering sister's a festering blister,
You're best to resist her, say I.
The mister resisted, the sister persisted,
I kissed her, all loyalty slipped.
When she said I could have her, her sister's cadaver
Must surely have turned in its crypt.
Yes, yes, yes, yes!
But I love she and she loves me.
Enraptured are the both of we.
Yes I love she and she loves I
And will through all eterni-tae!

[Cole Porter verse 1]
In a cavern, in a canyon
Excavating for a mine,
Dwelt a miner '49er,
And his daughter, Clementine.
(Chorus)
[Cole Porter verse 2]
Oh, my darling,
Oh, my darling,
Oh, my darling, Clementine.
You are gone and lost forever,
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.
[Mozart verse]
Light she was and like a fairy,
And her shoes were number nine,
Herring boxes without topses,
Sandals were for Clementine.
(Chorus)
[Beatnik verse]
Drove she ducklings to the water
Ev'ry morning just at 9,
Struck her foot against a splinter,
Fell into the foaming brine.
(Chorus)
Ruby lips above the water,
Blowing bubbles soft and fine.
As for me, I was no swimmer,
So I lost my Clementine.
(Chorus)
[G&S verse]
How I missed her, how I missed her,
How I missed my Clementine.
So I kissed her little sister,
And forgot my Clementine.

I have only comparatively recently
emerged from the United States Army, so that I am now, of course, in the
radioactive reserve. And, the usual jokes about the Army aside, one of the many
fine things one has to admit is the way that the Army has carried the American
democratic ideal to its logical conclusion, in the sense that not only do they
prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed, and color, but also on
the grounds of ability.

Be that as it may, some of you may
recall the publicity a few years ago attendant upon the Army's search for an
official Army song to be the counterpart of the Navy's
Anchors Aweigh and the Air Force's Up In The Air, Junior Birdman
song. I was in basic training at the time, and I recall our platoon sergeant,
who was an unfrocked Marine… (Actually, the change of service had come as quite
a blow to him because it meant that he had to memorize a new serial number which
took up most of his time.)

At any rate, I recall this sergeant's
informing me and my roommates of this rather deplorable fact that the
Army didn't have any official…excuse me, didn't have no official song, and
suggested that we work on this in our copious free time. Well, I submitted the
following song, which is called It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier
which, I think, demonstrates the proper spirit, you'll agree. However, the fact
that it did not win the contest I can ascribe only to blatant favoritism on part
of the judges.

The heart of every man in our platoon must swell with pride,
For the nation's youth, the cream of which is marching at his side.
For the fascinating rules and regulations that we share,
And the quaint and curious costumes that we're called upon to wear.

Now Al joined up to do his part defending you and me.
He wants to fight and bleed and kill and die for liberty.
With the hell of war he's come to grips,
Policing up the filter tips,
It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier!

When Pete was only in the seventh grade, he stabbed a cop.
He's real R.A. material, and he was glad to swap
His switchblade and his old zip gun
For a bayonet and a new M-1.
It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier!

R.A.: Regular Army.

M-1: An
early assault rifle.

After Johnny got through basic training, he
Was a soldier through and through when he was done.
Its effects were so well rooted,
That the next day he saluted
A Good Humor man, an usher, and a nun.

Now, Fred's an intellectual, brings a book to every meal.
He likes the deep philosophers, like Norman Vincent Peale.
He thinks the army's just the thing,
Because he finds it broadening.
It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier!

Now, Ed flunked out of second grade, and never finished school.
He doesn't know a shelter half from an entrenching tool.
But, he's going to be a big success,
He heads his class at OCS.
It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier!

Our old mess sergeant's taste buds had been shot off in the war.
But his savory collations add to our esprit de corps.
To think of all the marvelous ways
They're using plastics nowadays.
It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier!

Our lieutenant is the up-and-coming type,
Played with soldiers as a boy, you just can bet.
It is written in the stars
He will get his captain's bars,
But he hasn't got enough box tops yet.

Box tops: In those
days, one could get prizes from cereal companies by sending in enough box tops
from their product.

Our captain has a handicap to cope with, sad to tell.
He's from Georgia, and he doesn't speak the language very well.
He used to be, so rumor has,
The Dean of Men…at Alcatraz.
It makes a fellow proud to be,
What as a kid I vowed to be,
What luck to be allowed to be a soldier. (At ease!)

And now to the love song… I'm sure
you're familiar with love songs on the order of He's just my Bill, …
my man, … my Joe, … my Max, and so on, where the girl who
sings them tells you that, although the man she loves is antisocial, alcoholic,
physically repulsive, or just plain unsanitary, that, nevertheless, she is his
because he is hers, and like that. But, as far as I know, there has never been a
popular song from the analogous male point of view, that is to say, of a man who
finds himself in love with, or, in this case, married to, a girl, who has
nothing whatsoever to recommend her. I have attempted to fill this need. The
song is called She's My Girl.

Sharks gotta swim, and bats gotta fly,
I gotta love one woman till I die.
To Ed or Dick or Bob,
She may be just a slob,
But to me, well,
She's my girl.
In winter, the bedroom is one large ice cube,
And she squeezes the toothpaste from the middle of the tube!
Her hairs in the sink
Have driven me to drink,
But she's my girl, she's my girl, she's my girl,
And I love her.
The girl that I lament for,
The girl my money's spent for,
The girl my back is bent for,
The girl I owe the rent for,
The girl I gave up Lent for
Is the girl that heaven meant for me.
So though for breakfast she makes coffee that tastes like cham…poo,
I come home for dinner and get peanut butter stew,
Or, if I'm in luck,
It's broiled hockey puck,
But, oh well, what the hell,
She's my girl,
And I love her.

Another familiar type of love song is
the passionate or fiery variety, usually in tango tempo, in which the singer
exhorts his partner to haunt him and taunt him and, if at all possible, to
consume him with a kiss of fire. This particular illustration of this genre is
called The Masochism Tango.

I ache for the touch of your lips, dear,
But much more for the touch of your whips, dear.
You can raise welts
Like nobody else,
As we dance to the Masochism Tango.
Let our love be a flame, not an ember,
Say it's me that you want to dismember.
Blacken my eye,
Set fire to my tie,
As we dance to the Masochism Tango.
At your command
Before you here I stand,
My heart is in my hand…
Yeech!
It's here that I must be.
My heart entreats,
Just hear those savage beats,
And go put on your cleats
And come and trample me.
Your heart is hard as stone or mahogany,
That's why I'm in such exquisite agony.
My soul is on fire,
It's aflame with desire,
Which is why I perspire when we tango.
You caught my nose
In your left castanet, love,
I can feel the pain yet, love,
Ev'ry time I hear drums.
And I envy the rose
That you held in your teeth, love,
With the thorns underneath, love,
Sticking into your gums.
Your eyes cast a spell that bewitches.
The last time I needed twenty stitches
To sew up the gash
That you made with your lash,
As we danced to the Masochism Tango.
Bash in my brain,
And make me scream with pain,
Then kick me once again,
And say we'll never part.
I know too well
I'm underneath your spell,
So, darling, if you smell
Something burning, it's my heart… [hiccup]
'Scuse me!
Take your cigarette from its holder,
And burn your initials in my shoulder.
Fracture my spine,
And swear that you're mine,
As we dance to the Masochism Tango.

I am reminded at this point of a fellow
I used to know whose name was Henry; only to give you an idea of what a
individualist he was, he spelled it H-E-N-3-R-Y. The three was silent, you see.

Henr3y was financially independent,
having inherited his father's tar-and-feather business, and was therefore able
to devote his full time to such intellectual pursuits as writing. I particularly
remember a heartwarming novel of his about a young necrophiliac who finally
achieved his boyhood ambition by becoming coroner. …
(scattered laughter) The rest of you can look it up when you get home.

In addition to writing, he indulged in a
good deal of philosophizing. Like so many contemporary philosophers, he
especially enjoyed giving helpful advice to people who were happier than he was.
And one particular bit of advice which I recall—which is the reason I bring up
this whole dreary story—is something he said once, before they took him away to
the Massachusetts State Home for the Bewildered.

He said: «Life is like a sewer—what you
get out of it depends on what you put into it.» It's always seemed to me that
this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately
need today in these trying time of crisis and universal brouhaha. And so with
this in mind, I have here a modern, positive, dynamic, uplifting song, in the
tradition of the great old revival hymns. This one might more accurately be
termed a survival hymn. It goes like this:

When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner or
Later those you love will do the same for you.
And you may have thought it tragic,
Not to mention other adjec-
Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.
(But don't you worry.)

No more ashes, no more sackcloth,
And an arm band made of black cloth
Will some day nevermore adorn a sleeve.
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too,
There'll be nobody left behind to grieve.

And we will all go together when we go.
What a comforting fact that is to know.
Universal bereavement,
An inspiring achievement,
Yes, we will all go together when we go.

We will all go together when we go.
All suffused with an incandescent glow.
No one will have the endurance
To collect on his insurance,
Lloyd's of London will be loaded when they go.

Oh we will all fry together when we fry.
We'll be French fried potatoes by and by.
There will be no more misery
When the world is our rotisserie,
Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.

Down by the old mælstrom,
There'll be a storm before the calm.

And we will all bake together when we bake.
There'll be nobody present at the wake.
With complete participation
In that grand incineration,
Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.

Oh we will all char together when we char.
And let there be no moaning of the bar.
Just sing out a Te Deum
When you see that ICBM,
And the party will be come-as-you-are.

ICBM: Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile

Oh, we will all burn together when we burn.
There'll be no need to stand and wait your turn.
When it's time for the fallout
And Saint Peter calls us all out,
We'll just drop our agendas and adjourn.

You will all go directly to your respective Valhallas.
Go directly, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

And we will all go together when we go.
Every Hottentot and every Eskimo.
When the air becomes uranious,
We will all go simultaneous.
Yes, we all will go together
When we all go together,
Yes we all will go together when we go.

One week of every year is designated
National Brotherhood Week. This is just one of many such weeks honoring various
worthy causes. One of my favorites is National Make-Fun-Of-The-Handicapped Week,
which Frank Fontaine and Jerry Lewis are in charge of as you know. During
National Brotherhood Week various special events are arranged to drive home the
message of brotherhood—this year, for example, on the first day of the week,
Malcolm X was
killed, which gives you an idea of how effective the whole thing is.

For those
wondering when National Brotherhood Week actually was,
Malcolm X was
killed on Sunday, February 21 in 1965. If that was the first day of National
Brotherhood Week, then it ran from February 21 through Saturday, February 27 that year, or
the last full week in February.

I'm sure we all agree that we ought to
love one another, and I know there are people in the world who do not love their
fellow human beings, and I hate people like that! Here's a song about National
Brotherhood Week.

Oh, the white folks hate the black folks,
And the black folks hate the white folks;
To hate all but the right folks
Is an old established rule.

But during National Brotherhood Week,
National Brotherhood Week,
Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek to cheek.
It's fun to eulogize
The people you despise
As long as you don't let 'em in your school.

Lena Horne,
born 1917, was a mulatto lounge singer, active in the 1960's, who was criticized
for her lack of involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.

Sheriff
Jim Clark of Selma, Alabama, was responsible for several violent arrests of
Civil Rights protestors, over the wishes of Selma mayor Joseph Smitherman, who
wanted to bring industry to the town; and didn't want the negative publicity
that violence would bring.

Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks,
And the rich folks hate the poor folks.
All of my folks hate all of your folks,
It's American as apple pie.

But during National Brotherhood Week,
National Brotherhood Week,
New Yorkers love the Puerto Ricans 'cause it's very chic.
Step up and shake the hand
Of someone you can't stand,
You can tolerate him if you try!

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Moslems,
And everybody hates the Jews.

But during National Brotherhood Week,
National Brotherhood Week,
It's National Everyone-Smile-At-One-Another-Hood Week.
Be nice to people who
Are inferior to you.
It's only for a week, so have no fear;
Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!

A considerable amount of commotion was
stirred up during the past year over the prospect of a
multilateral force, known
to the headline writers as MLF. Much of this discussion took place during the
baseball season, so the Chronicle may not have covered it, but it did get a
certain amount of publicity; and the basic idea was that a bunch of us nations,
the good guys, would get together on a joint nuclear deterrent force including
our current friends, like France, and our traditional friends, like Germany.
Here's a song about that, called the MLF Lullaby:

Sleep, baby, sleep, in peace may you slumber,
No danger lurks, your sleep to encumber.
We've got the missiles, peace to determine,
And one of the fingers on the button will be German.
Why shouldn't they have nuclear warheads?
England says no, but they all are soreheads.
I say a bygone should be a bygone,
Let's make peace the way we did in Stanleyville and Saigon.
Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918
And they've hardly bothered us since then.
So, sleep well, my darling, the sandman can linger.
We know our buddies won't give us the finger.
Heil—hail—the Wehrmacht, I mean the Bundeswehr,
Hail to our loyal ally!
M L F
Will scare Brezhnev.
I hope he is half as scared as I!

Leonid
Brezhnev, 1906-1982. General Secretary of the Communist Party (1964), and
President of the USSR from (1977), he ran the Soviet Union after the deposition
of Nikita Kruschev.

During the last election we had a good
deal of fun back east following your senatorial contest out here. I'm from
Massachusetts, and I feel that we have a certain right to gloat over the other
states because Massachusetts is after all the only state with three senators.

At the time
Bobby Kennedy was serving as Senator from New York.

Anyway, here's a salute to your new junior senator:

George Murphy,
1902-1992, served as Senator from California from 1964-1970. This album was
recorded at the «Hungry I» in San Francisco, hence the reference to «your»
Junior Senator.

3Helen Gahagan,
1900-1980. Broadway leading lady, opera singer, and movie star, who became a
Congressman from California in 1944. After three terms, her liberal views became
a liability in the post-war Red Scare, and she was defeated in 1950, by Richard
Nixon, who claimed that she was pink right down to her underwear.

Ronald Reagan,
born 1911. Like Murphy, another actor who went into politics

Oh, gee, it's great!
At last we've got a senator who can really sing and dance.
We can't expect America to win against its foes
With no one in the Senate who can really tap his toes.

The movies that you've seen
On your television screen
Show his legislative talents at a glance.
Should Americans pick crops? George says «No»,
'cause no one but a Mexican would stoop so low.
And after all, even in Egypt, the pharaohs
Had to import Hebrew braceros.

Think of all the musicals we have in store.
Imagine: Broadway Melody of 1984!
Yes, now that he's a Senator, he's really got the chance
To give the public a song and dance!

One type of song that has come into
increasing prominence in recent months is the folk song of protest. You have to
admire people who sing these songs. It takes a certain amount of courage to get
up in a coffee house or a college auditorium and come out in favor of the things
that everybody else in the audience is against, like peace and justice and
brotherhood and so on. But the nicest thing about a protest song is that it
makes you feel so good. I have a song here which, I realize, should be
accompanied on a folk instrument, in which category the piano does not, alas,
qualify. So imagine, if you will, that I am playing an 88-string guitar!

We are the folk song army,
Every one of us cares.
We all hate poverty, war, and injustice
Unlike the rest of you squares.
There are innocuous folk songs, yeah,
But we regard 'em with scorn.
The folks who sing 'em have no social conscience,
Why, they don't even care if Jimmy Crack Corn.
If you feel dissatisfaction,
Strum your frustrations away.
Some people may prefer action,
But give me a folk song any old day.
The tune don't have to be clever,
And it don't matter if you put a couple extra syllables into a line.
It sounds more ethnic if it ain't good English
And it don't even gotta rhyme… (excuse me: rhyne!)
Remember the war against Franco?
That's the kind where each of us belongs.
Though he may have won all the battles,
We had all the good songs!

I do have a cause, though, it is
obscenity. I'm for it! (laughter) Thank you.
Unfortunately, the civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to
fight it, owing to the nature of the laws, as a matter of freedom of speech and
stifling of free expression and so on. But we know what's really involved:
dirty books are fun! That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court
and say that, I suppose. It's simply a matter of freedom of pleasure, a right
which is not guaranteed by the Constitution, unfortunately. Anyway, since people
seem to be marching for their causes these days, I have here a march for mine.
It's called:

Smut!
Give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can't shut
If it's uncut
and unsubt-le.
I've never quibbled
If it was ribald.
I would devour
Where others merely nibbled.
As the judge remarked the day that he acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
«To be smut
It must be ut-
Terly without redeeming social importance.»
Por-
Nographic pictures I adore.
Indecent magazines galore,
I like them more
If they're hard core.
Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties,
samplers, stained glass windows, tattoos, anything!
More, more, I'm still not satisfied!
Stories of tortures
Used by debauchers
Lurid, licentious and vile,
Make me smile.
Novels that pander
To my taste for candor
Give me a pleasure sublime.
Let's face it I love slime!
Old books can be indecent books,
Though recent books are bolder.
For filth, I'm glad to say,
Is in the mind of the beholder.
When correctly viewed,
Everything is lewd.
I could tell you things about Peter Pan
And the Wizard of Oz—there's a dirty old man!
I thrill
To any book like Fanny Hill,
And I suppose I always will
If it is swill
And really fil-thy.
Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?
I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley.
But now they're trying to take it all away from us unless
We take a stand, and hand in hand we fight for freedom of the press.
In other words: Smut! I love it.
Ah, the adventures of a slut.
Oh, I'm a market they can't glut.
I don't know what
Compares with smut.
Hip, hip, hooray!
Let's hear it for the Supreme Court!
Don't let them take it away!

What with
President Johnson practicing escalatio on the
Vietnamese, and then
the
Dominican Crisis on top of that, it has been a nervous year, and people have
begun to feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis. Fortunately, in
times of crisis like this, America always has its number one instrument of
diplomacy to fall back on. Here's a song about it:

When someone makes a move
Of which we don't approve,
Who is it that always intervenes?
UN and OAS,
They have their place, I guess,
But first—send the Marines!
We'll send them all we've got,
John Wayne and Randolph Scott;
Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
To the shores of Tripoli,
But not to Mississippoli,
What do we do? We send the Marines!
For might makes right,
And till they've seen the light,
They've got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
Till somebody we like can be elected.
Members of the corps
All hate the thought of war;
They'd rather kill them off by peaceful means.
Stop calling it aggression,
Ooh, we hate that expression!
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo.
They love us everywhere we go,
So when in doubt,
Send the Marines!

Time was when an American about to go
abroad would be warned by his friends or the guidebooks not to drink the water.
But times have changed, and now a foreigner coming to this country might be
offered the following advice:

If you visit American city,
You will find it very pretty.
Just two things of which you must beware:
Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!
Pollution, pollution!
They got smog and sewage and mud.
Turn on your tap
And get hot and cold running crud!
See the halibuts and the sturgeons
Being wiped out by detergeons.
Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly,
But they don't last long if they try.
Pollution, pollution!
You can use the latest toothpaste,
And then rinse your mouth
With industrial waste.
Just go out for a breath of air
And you'll be ready for Medicare.
The city streets are really quite a thrill—
If the hoods don't get you, the monoxide will.
Pollution, pollution!
Wear a gas mask and a veil.
Then you can breathe,
Long as you don't inhale!
Lots of things there that you can drink,
But stay away from the kitchen sink!
The breakfast garbage that you throw into the Bay
They drink at lunch in San José.

Since this
album was recorded in San Francisco, this is the California version of this
verse. In some live performances, he also sang a New York version, that went:

«The breakfast garbage they throw out in Troy
They drink at lunch in Perth Amboy.»

And a Generic version that
went:

«Throw out your breakfast garbage and I have got a hunch
that the folks downstream will drink it for lunch.»

So go to the city,
See the crazy people there.
Like lambs to the slaughter,
They're drinking the water
And breathing [cough] the air!

This year we've been celebrating the
hundredth anniversary of the Civil War and the fiftieth anniversary of the
beginning of World War I and the twentieth anniversary of the end of World War
II. So all in all, it's been a good year for the war buffs. And a number of LPs
and television specials have come out capitalizing on all this nostalgia,
with particular emphasis on the songs of the various wars.

I feel that if any songs are gonna come
out of World War III, we'd better start writing them now. I have one here. Might
call it a bit of pre-nostalgia.

This is the song that some of the boys
sang as they went bravely off to World War III:

In World War
II, there was a popular song called «Goodbye Momma, I'm Off to Yokahama».
Alas, I haven't yet found the lyrics.

So long, mom,
I'm off to drop the bomb,
So don't wait up for me.
But while you swelter
Down there in your shelter
You can see me
On your TV.

While we're attacking frontally
Watch Brinkally and Huntally
Describing contrapuntally
The cities we have lost.
No need for you to miss a minute of the agonizing holocaust. Yeah!

I wonder how many people here tonight
remember
Hubert Humphrey, he used to be a Senator. From time to time you read
something about him pinning a medal on somebody or making a speech, or every now
and then you read something in one of those where are they now columns:
Whatever became of
Deanna Durbin and Hubert Humphrey and so on.

This became quite an issue last winter
at the time of
Winston Churchill's funeral, when
President Johnson was too ill to go and somebody suggested that he send
Hubert and he said, «Hubert Who?» …and all America was singing:

Whatever became of Hubert?
Has anyone heard a thing?
Once he shone on his own,
Now he sits home alone
And waits for the phone to ring.
Once a fiery liberal spirit,
Ah, but now when he speaks, he must clear it.
Second fiddle's a hard part, I know,
When they don't even give you a bow.
«We must protest this treatment, Hubert»,
Says each newspaper reader.
As someone once remarked to Schubert,
«Take us to your Lieder»…
(Sorry about that.)
Whatever became of you, Hubert?
We miss you, so tell us, please:
Are you sad? Are you cross?
Are you gathering moss
While you wait for the boss to sneeze?
Does Lyndon, recalling when he was VP,
Say «I'll do unto you like they did unto me»?
Do you dream about staging a coup?
Hubert what happened to you?

Some of you who have small children may
have perhaps been put in the embarrassing position of being unable to do your
child's arithmetic homework because of the current revolution in mathematics
teaching known as the New Math. So as a public service here tonight, I thought I
would offer a brief lesson in the New Math. Tonight, we're gonna cover
subtraction. This is the first room I've worked for a while that didn't have a
blackboard, so we will have to make do with more primitive visual aids, as they
say in the ed biz. Consider the following subtraction problem, which I will put
up here: 342 minus 173. Now, remember how we used to do that:

Three from two is nine, carry the one,
and if you're under 35 or went to a private school, you say seven from three is
six, but if you're over 35 and went to a public school, you say eight from four
is six …and carry the one, so we have 169.

But in the new approach, as you know,
the important thing is to understand what you're doing, rather than to get the
right answer. Here's how they do it now:

You can't take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the tens place.
Now that's really four tens
So you make it three tens,
Regroup, and you change a ten to ten ones,
And you add 'em to the two and get twelve,
And you take away three, that's nine.
Is that clear?
Now instead of four in the tens place
You've got three,
'Cause you added one,
That is to say, ten, to the two,
But you can't take seven from three,
So you look in the hundreds place.
From the three you then use one
To make ten ones…
(And you know why four plus minus one
Plus ten is fourteen minus one?
'Cause addition is commutative, right!)…
And so you've got thirteen tens
And you take away seven,
And that leaves five…
Well, six actually…
But the idea is the important thing!
Now go back to the hundreds place,
You're left with two,
And you take away one from two,
And that leaves…?
Everybody get one?
Not bad for the first day!
Hooray for New Math,
New-hoo-hoo Math,
It won't do you a bit of good to review math.
It's so simple,
So very simple,
That only a child can do it!

Now, that actually is not the answer
that I had in mind, because the book that I got this problem out of wants you to
do it in base eight. But don't panic! Base eight is just like base ten really—if
you're missing two fingers! Shall we have a go at it? Hang on…

You can't take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the eights place.
Now that's really four eights,
So you make it three eights,
Regroup, and you change an eight to eight ones
And you add 'em to the two,
And you get one-two base eight,
Which is ten base ten,
And you take away three, that's seven.
Ok?
Now instead of four in the eights place
You've got three,
'Cause you added one,
That is to say, eight, to the two,
But you can't take seven from three,
So you look at the sixty-fours…

«Sixty-four? How did sixty-four get into
it?» I hear you cry! Well, sixty-four is eight squared, don't you see? «Well, ya
ask a silly question, ya get a silly answer!»

From the three, you then use one
To make eight ones,
You add those ones to the three,
And you get one-three base eight,
Or, in other words,
In base ten you have eleven,
And you take away seven,
And seven from eleven is four!
Now go back to the sixty-fours,
You're left with two,
And you take away one from two,
And that leaves…?
Now, let's not always see the same hands!
One, that's right.
Whoever got one can stay after the show and clean the erasers.
Hooray for New Math,
New-hoo-hoo Math!
It won't do you a bit of good to review math.
It's so simple,
So very simple,
That only a child can do it!

Come back tomorrow night…we're gonna do
fractions!

Y'know, I've often thought I'd like to
write a mathematics textbook someday because I have a title that I know will
sell a million copies; I'm gonna call it Tropic of Calculus.

A reference
to Henry Miller's erotic novels, Tropic of Cancer, and Tropic of
Capricorn

…who were listed in the obituary, by the way, which is
what made it so interesting, there were three whom she went so far as to marry:
One of the leading composers of the day,
Gustav
Mahler, composer of Das Lied von der Erde and other
light classics;

Das Lied von der Erde
(aka The Song of the Earth), a very heavy piece of music written by
Mahler when he knew he was dying.

Alma, tell us,
All modern women are jealous,
Which of your magical wands
Got you Gustav and Walter and Franz?

The first one she married was Mahler,
Whose buddies all knew him as Gustav,
And each time he saw her he'd holler,
«Ach, that is the Fräulein I must have!»

Their marriage, however, was murdah.
He'd scream to the heavens above,
«I'm writing Das Lied von der Erde
And she only wants to make love!»

Alma, tell us,
All modern women are jealous.
You should have a statue in bronze
For bagging Gustav and Walter and Franz.

While married to Gus she met Gropius,
And soon she was swinging with Walter.
Gus died and her tear drops were copious,
She cried all the way to the altar.

But he would work late at the Bauhaus,
And only came home now and then.
She said, «What am I running, a chow house?
It's time to change partners again!»

Alma, tell us,
All modern women are jealous.
Though you didn't even use
Ponds,
You got Gustav and Walter and Franz.

While married to Walt, she'd met Werfel,
And he, too, was caught in her net.
He married her but he was carefel,
'Cause Alma was no Bernadette.

And that is the story of Alma,
Who knew how to receive and to give.
The body that reached her embalma
Was one that had known how to live.

Alma, tell us,
How can they help being jealous?
Ducks always envy the swans
Who get Gustav and Walter,
You never did falter
With Gustav and Walter and Franz.

I know some people feel that marriage as
an institution is dying out, but I disagree. And the point was driven home to me
rather forcefully not long ago by a letter I received which said: «Darling, I
love you, and I cannot live without you. Marry me, or I will kill myself.» Well,
I was a little disturbed at that until I took another look at the envelope, and
saw that it was addressed to occupant…

Speaking of love, one problem that
recurs more and more frequently these days, in books and plays and movies, is
the inability of people to communicate with the people they love: husbands and
wives who can't communicate, children who can't communicate with their parents,
and so on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on, and in real
life, I might add, spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I
feel that if a person can't communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up!

One of the big news items of the past
year concerned the fact that China, which we call Red China, exploded a
nuclear bomb, which we called a device. Then Indonesia announced that it
was gonna have one soon, and proliferation became the word of the day. Here's a
song about that.

First we got the bomb and that was good,
'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that's O.K.,
'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way!
Who's next?
France got the bomb, but don't you grieve,
'Cause they're on our side (I believe).
China got the bomb, but have no fears;
They can't wipe us out for at least five years!
Who's next?

An oblique
reference to the
Five Year Plans carried out by China and the Soviet Union, each of which
focused on improving some specific area of industry.

Then Indonesia claimed that they
Were gonna get one any day.
South Africa wants two, that's right:
One for the black and one for the white!
Who's next?

At the
time, South Africa's
Apartheid system of segregation still kept the nation strongly divided along
racial lines.

Egypt's gonna get one, too,
Just to use on you know who.
So Israel's getting tense,
Wants one in self defense.
«The Lord's our shepherd,» says the psalm,
But just in case, we better get a bomb!
Who's next?
Luxembourg is next to go
And, who knows, maybe Monaco.
We'll try to stay serene and calm
When Alabama gets the bomb!
Who's next, who's next, who's next?
Who's next?

And what is it that put America in the
forefront of the nuclear nations? And what is it that will make it possible to
spend twenty billion dollars of your money to put some clown on the moon? Well,
it was good old American know how, that's what, as provided by good old
Americans like Dr. Wernher von Braun!

Wernher von Braun, 1912-1977. The most famous of the Nazi rocket scientists
brought to the US after World War II, who later went on to help design
NASA's Saturn V rocket, that
went to the moon.

Gather 'round while I sing you of Wernher
von Braun,
A man whose allegiance
Is ruled by expedience.
Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown,
«Ha, Nazi, Schmazi,» says Wernher von Braun.

Don't say that he's hypocritical,
Say rather that he's apolitical.
«Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department», says Wernher von Braun.

Some have harsh words for this man of renown,
But some think our attitude
Should be one of gratitude,
Like the widows and cripples in old London town,
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun.

Wernher von Braun
had helped design the German V-I and V-II rockets that attacked London.

You too may be a big hero,
Once you've learned to count backwards to zero.
«In German oder English I know how to count down,
Und I'm learning Chinese!» says Wernher von Braun.

Another big news story of the year
concerned the ecumenical council in Rome, known as
Vatican II. Among the things they did, in an attempt to make the church
more… commercial, was to introduce the vernacular into portions of the Mass to
replace Latin, and to widen somewhat the range of music permissible in the
liturgy. But I feel that if they really want to sell the product in this secular
age, what they ought to do is to redo some of the liturgical music in popular
song forms. I have a modest example here; it's called The Vatican Rag!

First you get down on your knees,
Fiddle with your rosaries,
Bow your head with great respect,
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!

Do whatever steps you want if
You have cleared them with the Pontiff.
Everybody say his own
Kyrie eleison,
Doin' the Vatican Rag.

Get in line in that processional,
Step into that small confessional.
There the guy who's got religion'll
Tell you if your sin's original.
If it is, try playin' it safer,
Drink the wine and chew the wafer,
Two, four, six, eight,
Time to transubstantiate!

So get down upon your knees,
Fiddle with your rosaries,
Bow your head with great respect,
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!

Make a cross on your abdomen,
When in Rome do like a Roman;
Ave Maria,
Gee, it's good to see ya.
Gettin' ecstatic an' sorta dramatic an'
Doin' the Vatican
Rag!

This song was written for
the PBS children's show «The Electric Company» in 1971. It appeared on an
Electric Company album, and later a Sesame Street album. Both of these releases
were stereo. It appears in mono as a bonus track on the CD of Tom Lehrer
Revisited.

Who can turn a can into a cane?
Who can turn a pan into a pane?
It's not too hard to see,
It's Silent E.
Who can turn a cub into a cube?
Who can turn a tub into a tube?
It's elementary
For Silent E.
He took a pin and turned it into a pine.
He took a twin and turned him into twine.
Who can turn a cap into a cape?
Who can turn a tap into a tape?
A little glob becomes a globe instantly,
If you just add Silent E.
He turned a dam—Alikazam!—into a dame.
But my friend Sam stayed just the same.
Who can turn a man into a mane?
Who can turn a van into a vane?
A little hug becomes huge instantly.
Don't add W, Don't add X, And don't add Y or Z,
Just add Silent E.

—As
you've seen in the rest of the pages on this web site—I prefer to read while
listening. I therefore like to have the ability to choose several formats,
including every song on one page, and the foot-notes in between the
text—where they're needed the most, while I pause the music player. Please pick
and choose what you feel is best for this occasion! If you prefer having
the footnotes at the bottom of each song, click here;
although the version on this page has got a lot more hyperlinks!

If you've
got a slow and / or expensive Internet connection / do listen on a disconnected
PC, this version may be simplest to download/save on your hard drive.

Among other
info about Tom Lehrer, please also refer to these pages on the Internet: